


Every Last Star in the Sky

by yourenotfree



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gallavich, I love Mandy, I write about Mandy because the shameless writers won't, M/M, Missing Scenes, this is the purest friendship, vaguely character study-esque, we all love mandy, you love mandy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 00:02:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10978155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourenotfree/pseuds/yourenotfree
Summary: Ian Gallagher was more beautiful than any person had a right to be.





	Every Last Star in the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever stop writing about Ian & Mandy? No. Of course not.
> 
> It's been a minute, but I've returned, as usual, to manipulate canon the way I want, and give us Shameless fans what we've been sorely lacking: more friendship scenes!
> 
> I am incredibly pleased that I finally forced myself to sit down and finish this piece. I, personally, cannot get enough of this dynamic.
> 
> I sincerely hope that you enjoy.

Ian Gallagher was more beautiful than any person had a right to be.

 

Mandy caught herself thinking it more often than not. Once in a while, when they were getting high off of her brother’s stash, or placing bets on who could take more shots before violently puking, she’d say it out loud.

 

And always, every time, Ian would laugh that infectious little laugh, and shake his head. “Not more beautiful than you, Mands.”

 

She loved him. Or, at least, she thought it was love. Did wanting to slice open your chest, pull out your heart, and present it to someone constitute love?

 

It was fucked up, loving her gay best friend this much. But she figured that this love, whatever it may be, was a thousand times better than anything she’d had before. She’d take as much of Ian as he was willing to give to her.

 

When he stayed over at hers, they slept in the same bed. He let her crawl into his arms, let her nuzzle into his neck; even let her fall asleep with her fingers tangled in his. Sometimes, her heart felt so full in her chest, she was worried it might actually burst.

 

She loved Ian enough to accept that she would never be enough for him. It didn’t really hurt; not like a bad breakup, or something cliché and ugly like that. He was still always around, still always _her_ Ian. She just had to share him every now and then.

 

At first, it was with Kash.

In front of Ian, Mandy painted on her best supportive face. But after he skipped giddily off to fuck a man twice his age, her vision went momentarily red as she imagined the nine kinds of shit she’d kick out this pedophile douchebag if given half the chance. Sometimes she’d share a look with Lip over Ian’s head, and wonder if they were thinking the exact same thing.

 

But she never quite managed to work up the nerve to tell Ian just what she thought of his secret boyfriend, much too scared he’d be offended and leave her all alone. So she bit down on her tongue, and pretended that everything was okay. After all, he wasn’t _really_ hurting Ian, was he?

 

It ended suddenly, the Kash thing, and Mandy never thought twice about why.

 

“Think Kash and me are over,” Ian said casually one afternoon. They were sharing a joint on the front steps of the Milkovich house. Mandy had been pestering Ian for over an hour to reveal the identity of this new guy he’d started fucking, when he dropped the bomb that he and the kid fucker were done.

 

Trying to conceal her excitement, Mandy carefully asked, “How come?”

 

Ian shrugged, the picture of nonchalance. “He doesn’t really do it for me anymore.”

 

He didn’t sound particularly torn up about it, either.

 

“Ooh,” Mandy nudged him with her shoulder, and took another deep pull from the joint caught between two carefully manicured fingers. “Sounds like this new guy of yours is really something. Sex that good?”

 

He blushed that beautiful, bright red, and Mandy had to physically restrain herself from cupping his face in both hands, and planting one on him right then and there.

 

“Yeah,” he finally mumbled, staring down at his shoes. “The sex is good.” His lip curled into a filthy smirk, and a tiny stab of jealousy twisted like a hot knife in Mandy’s chest.

 

For weeks after his secret fling started, Ian couldn’t keep the shit-eating grin off of his face. Sometimes Ian would look guiltily over at Mandy, after _again_ refusing to reveal the name of his closeted boyfriend, and she’d wonder just how serious the situation must be if Ian couldn’t even tell _her._

Once, when they were coming down from a particularly good high, and Ian’s eyelids had grown heavy with sleep, she managed to pry a small confession out of him.

 

“I like him more than I should,” Ian mumbled, lost somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. He let his head loll backwards until it rested at an uncomfortable angle against the wall. “More than he likes me.”

 

Mandy frowned deeply, her brow pulled low, and wrapped her arms around Ian’s chest. “Then he’s fucking _stupid_ ,” she muttered angrily, furious at the thought of some asshole breaking _her_ Ian’s heart _._

“Not stupid,” Ian breathed. His eyes fluttered shut, and his body relaxed. With great effort, he shrugged. “Just scared.” In his last moments before completely succumbing to sleep, he pressed Mandy as tightly to his chest as possible, and kissed the crown of her head. “Anyways, I’ll always have you.”

 

Mandy stayed up late into the night, and studied Ian while he slept. She smoothed out the worry lines carving a path across his forehead with her index finger, carded a hand through his fiery hair, and vowed to stay by his side for the rest of eternity.

 

After all, Ian had always stood by her. Even during the darkest days, when Mandy couldn’t decide between shedding this nightmare of a life and hitting the road, or simply placing the barrel of a gun between her teeth and squeezing the trigger.

 

Ian kept her rooted firmly to this place. He offered her a place to sleep whenever she needed it, after she’d finally spilled the beans about Terry. He took her in his arms whenever she was too scared to leave the house. He held her hand at the clinic, as she shook and cried and made him swear never to tell a soul.

 

He was her protector, and she was his.

 

Despite her best efforts, however, Mandy began to see less and less of Ian.

 

She was used to his erratic moods and a schedule that burned hot and cold at the same times as his tumultuous relationship with Mystery Guy. Half the time when he showed up at her door, disappointment seeping through a tired smile and deep purple bags blooming beneath his eyes, she hadn’t even been expecting him.

 

“Your guy bail?” She always asked, a piece of her heart chipping off at the sight of his sad, green eyes.

 

He always tried to play it off, and he always came up short. “No big deal,” he promised.

 

And Mandy tried very hard to believe him. She was doing a decent job of it, until she woke up to the sound of wet, shuddery breaths in the middle of the night, and realized that she couldn’t pretend anymore.

 

“You have to make him commit, or get out,” she announced one particularly hot, summer afternoon, slamming her palms down on the table to punctuate her point. Ian had been moping all day, and she was on the verge of ripping every last strand of hair from her scalp. “He’s not worth it if he makes you this fucking unhappy all the time, Ian. There are plenty of other people that would give anything to be with you.”

 

She didn’t say, _like me._ She didn’t say, _I’ve been right in front of you this entire time, if you’d just open your fucking eyes._

She held her tongue, something that’d she’d never been all that good at.

“It’s not that simple,” Ian said, voice low and grating. He’d been tense all day. Mandy could tell he was positively itching for a fight, and she needed to be careful in this sensitive territory.

 

“What isn’t simple?”

 

Ian looked up, scowling. His face was still bruised and beaten raw in a dozen different places for reasons he had repeatedly refused to explain. His lip had split open again, and an angry droplet of blood ran down his chin. He brushed it away, smearing red across his mouth.

 

“Just leave it alone, Mandy,” he demanded. With a finger, he prodded gently at his bloody lip.

 

She reached for him (she was _always_ reaching for him, and he was _always_ just out of reach), sighing deeply. “Stop poking at it. You’re gonna make it worse.”

 

Ian removed the finger, but he took a half-step backwards. Mandy let her hand drop limply back to her side, feeling small and silly. “Ian,” she tried, softly. “Ian, you can talk to me. You can tell me anything.

 

The ice between them thawed. Ian’s scowl melted into a thin, exhausted line. He opened his arms wide, and accepted Mandy into them. She went without protest, sinking happily into the only place she’d ever felt truly safe.

 

“I’m sorry,” Ian said. “I’ve been a shitty friend lately, and it has absolutely nothing to do with you.” His voice lowered several octaves as he continued, “You’re right: I’m done being walked all over. I’m going to confront him.”

 

Mandy went very still. “You are?”

 

She felt him nod against the top of her head. “I am.”

 

She didn’t understand yet, the magnitude of what he was proposing. She couldn’t quite detect the weariness to his tone, the quiet acceptance. She couldn’t yet fathom what was churning around in that pretty head of his.

 

The ignorance, while it lasted, was bliss.

 

And then, naturally, all hell broke loose.

 

She’d lost sight of Mickey, which wouldn’t have been strange, had it not been _Mickey’s wedding_. Ian was at the bar. He’d been at the bar since the opening notes of the wedding march. Mandy had been checking up on his periodically throughout the evening, but her attention had shifted more and more with every tequila shot.

 

She was grinding—front to front—with her date, rutting drunkenly against the thigh he’d pushed up between her legs, when she heard a furious, dead-cold voice scream, “ _Mandy!_ ”

 

Before she’d even had a chance to lift her head, two hands were gripping her by the biceps, hard enough to leave finger-shaped bruises, and dragging her away from Kenyatta.

 

It took her a moment to realize that the fingernails eating into the flesh of her arms belonged to Lip. She was much too drunk to notice the black look in his eyes, or comprehend his violent tone of voice.

 

Her heart skipped an entire beat. Far too pleased to see him than he deserved, Mandy slurred, “Couldn’t stay away, could ya.” She slammed her mouth into his, working her tongue in through his clamped lips.

 

When he shoved her off, Mandy’s veins ran cold.

 

“You ruined Karen’s _life_ ,” he shouted, volume rising with each word and spittle hitting her directly in the eye. “You’re a _jealous_ , _demented_ , _cunt_ , Mandy! Seriously!” He released her, and Mandy was quite certain she’d never before felt so empty. “Alright, we’re done.”

 

Fire rose in her chest, licking its way up her throat. She was angry, so angry that she was literally seeing the world in a red, manic haze. “I did it for you, you prick,” she growled.

 

How could he not see that? She’d been willing to do _anything_ for her Gallaghers. _Anything._ And this was the thanks she got? Screamed at by Lip, and ignored by Ian?

 

If she’d had a knife in her hand right then, she would’ve sunk it, hilt deep, into Lip Gallagher’s chest. She would’ve ripped his heart from his body, and shown him the scar tissue that was Karen fucking Jackson.

 

“I did _everything_ for you, but you’re so fucking blind!” She took a step backwards, reaching blindly for Kenyatta. “You know what, don’t sweat it. We were done before you got here.” She grasped Kenyatta by the tie, and tugged him roughly against her backside. “This is Kenyatta. He’s my date. I just swallowed his load in the bathroom, can you taste it?”

 

She was stalking towards him, ready to shove her tongue down his throat or deck him in the face (it was always one of the two), when Ian intercepted his brother, and everything Mandy thought she knew shifted.

 

The words were a slap in the face, or a bucket of freezing water thrown over her head. She felt suddenly, shockingly sober.

 

 _You try sitting on your ass while the person you love…no, I’m sorry, I mean the guy you’ve been_ fucking _, gets married to some random, commie skank!_

She’d always been a little slow on the uptake. It took a few moments for it to really sink in.

 

Mandy blinked. Once, twice, three times. Then, she got it.

 

Ian and…

 

It was unsettling, how much sense it made. Mandy wanted to face palm. How could she have missed this? All this time, and the answer had been _literally_ in the next room.

 

Lip had forcibly removed Ian from of the party before Mandy could get her hands on him and demand answers. 

 

Rage buzzed a layer beneath her skin, hot and feverish. She scanned the hall with her eyes, scouring the crowd for a dark head and tattooed fingers.

 

She finally found him out back, chain smoking near the dumpsters. He looked up as she approached, head snapping toward the source of crunching gravel and heavy footsteps.

 

He exhaled a plume of smoke and gave her the evil eye. “Can I not get one _goddamn_ second of privacy around here? Jesus fucking Christ, Mandy.”

 

Mandy barely heard a word out of his mouth. She snatched the cigarette from between his fingers, and flicked it away. “Ian left,” she snapped.

 

The color drained from Mickey’s face. He didn’t even bother protesting the wasted smoke. Carefully rearranging his expression into one of practiced disinterest, he said, “The fuck do I care? Not his fucker keeper.”

 

_Pussy._

 

“Is that so?” she hitched a brow high on her forehead, the way only a Milkovich could. “You can’t find a shit to give about the kid that just drunkenly declared his love for you?”

 

She didn’t see him move. One second, he was yards away, staring angrily down at his feet. The next, he was inches from her, shaking a threatening finger in her face.

 

“What the _fuck_ do you think you’re talking about?”

 

She stood her ground, more fearless than she’d ever felt before. “The truth,” she murmured. “You and Ian, right? That’s what it’s been, this whole time.” She shook her head in disbelief. “The mystery guy. He’s _you_.”

 

Pure, unadulterated fear glistened behind Mickey’s eyes. He lowered the finger. He took an uneven breath. “Look, you gotta keep quiet.”

 

Mandy had never heard her brother beg before. She never wanted to hear it again.

 

“I wouldn’t say anything,” she promised him, very seriously. “I’m not like Dad. You _know_ that, Mick.”

 

He looked like a wild animal whose leg had been caught in a bear trap. The only options were to gnaw the limb off, or die.

 

“You think I’d ever do something to hurt Ian?”

 

Slowly, Mickey began to nod. He exhaled, nearly doubling over beneath the weight of his relief. “Nah,” he said after a long pause. “You love that kid too much.”

 

Apparently, thought Mandy, so did he.

 

Mandy supposed it was ironic. The man she considered her soulmate, her knight in shining armor, had turned out to be gay. And he’d then proceeded to fall in love with her dirty, twat of an older brother instead of her.

 

That was the kind of fucking luck she had.

 

Ian showed up on her porch the next morning, almost humorous in his predictability. She knew exactly why he was here, and it certainly wasn’t for her.

 

Mandy let him, and quickly excused herself to her bedroom, where she gave herself a mental pep talk, and resolutely determined that she would not cry.

 

She noticed a faded, green hoodie balled up under her window. It was Ian’s. He’d left it there months ago, and Mandy had conveniently forgotten to tell him. She crossed the room to it, and took great care as she lifted it up to her nose.

 

She’d always been oddly comforted by the familiar scent of _Ian._ If he was really planning on leaving her, this one piece of discarded clothing was all she’d have left of him.

 

Mandy knew, even as she held inhaled against the fabric, that it would never be enough.

 

Later, as she met Ian outside on the porch, Mandy gently laced their fingers together, for the last time. Their hands rocked gently back and forth between them.

 

“You’ll call me? Or text, or whatever. So I know that you’re safe?”

 

Ian mustered the weakest of smiles. There was still a tearstain on one of his cheeks from before, in Mickey’s bedroom. “Of course,” he said softly. “I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t talk to my girlfriend.”

 

She chuckled lightly. “This is probably the part where we officially break up. Those long distance relationships never really work out in the end.”

 

Ian looped both arms around Mandy’s narrow waist, and hugged her hard. She slipped her head into the crook of his neck, where she fit so naturally.

 

Right against her ear, Ian whispered, “I’m not worried about us, Mands. We’re forever, right? You and me?”

 

Her heart was splintering, and her eyes were wet, but she believed him. She had to.

 

“Right,” she whispered back. She pulled back, because she knew he wouldn’t. “I’ll miss you like crazy, Ian. Come home as soon as you can, alright?”

 

She tried not to linger on the way his eyes stared over her shoulder, towards the house he had just exited. His gaze slowly made its way back to her face.

 

“I’ll do my best,” he said. He dipped his face down to Mandy’s level, and pressed his lips softly against hers. When he moved away, they were both smiling broadly.

 

“I love you, Mands.”

 

And that was true, wasn’t it? Ian Gallagher loved her. Maybe not in the way that would’ve made both of their lives a little easier, but it was enough.

 

Ian Gallagher, the best person in the entire world, loved her. That wasn’t nothing.

 

“I love you, too, Ian,” she returned. _More than you’ll ever know._

 

But that was okay, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> If you have a second to spare, a kudo or comment is always greatly appreciated. 
> 
> Have a nice day, friends.


End file.
